The NYPD announced that 164 guns were surrendered at yesterday's gun buy-back on Staten Island. The program, which was held by the Staten Island DA's Office and NYPD, offered $200 cash for each eligible handgun and $20 for each eligible rifle or shotgun—no questions asked. The NYPD adds that of the guns turned in yesterday, four were loaded.

After watching the TV coverage for a while and it became clear that it was a terrorist attack, I wrote in my diary: “Today means the end of civil liberties for my lifetime”. In an interesting New York Review of Books piece David Cole is less pessimistic. But his tally of the aftermath and implications of the attacks is worth a read. Looking back, what’s most striking about the decade is how wasteful it has been in both resources and lives. The US (and the UK) got themselves enmeshed in one necessary war (Afghanistan), which they then screwed up by getting involved in an unnecessary one (Iraq). Air travel has been transformed from a convenience to an infuriating, inefficient nightmare. State surveillance has increased a thousandfold, and ’security theatre’ has become a way of life not just for real security authorities but also for the millions of jobsworths who wear uniforms in corporate foyers. Every time I’ve queued at an airport in the last decade, or been told by a cop that I can’t take a photograph in a public place, my first thought is that bin Laden won hands down.

"Williams: What do you make of that dynamic that just happened here, the mention of two hundred and thirty-four executions drew applause?
Perry: I think Americans understand justice."
Is “justice” some sort of slot machine that works best, in terms of wins, when it turns out the most bodies? The applause will likely be cited as an example of our national bloodthirstiness. That’s not quite right, though; the truth is a little worse. Even a death-penalty supporter might be expected to remember that each execution is part of a story that involves the death of a victim, maybe more than one. For there to be a lot of executions, there have to have been a lot of murders—and that can hardly be cause for happiness. But one suspects that, for this audience, “death penalty” had ceased to be anything but a political symbol—a word disconnected from actual lives and deaths. It wouldn’t be the only sign of detachment from reality in the debate.

Let me toss out the idea that, as our markets discover and respond to what consumers most want, our technology has become extremely adept at creating products that correspond to our fantasy ideal of an erotic relationship, in which the beloved object asks for nothing and gives everything, instantly, and makes us feel all powerful, and doesn’t throw terrible scenes when it’s replaced by an even sexier object and is consigned to a drawer.

To speak more generally, the ultimate goal of technology, the telos of techne, is to replace a natural world that’s indifferent to our wishes — a world of hurricanes and hardships and breakable hearts, a world of resistance — with a world so responsive to our wishes as to be, effectively, a mere extension of the self.

Let me suggest, finally, that the world of techno-consumerism is therefore troubled by real love, and that it has no choice but to trouble love in turn.

Yahoo missed out on every tech trend of the past few years: social networking, location service, group deals, passive gaming, status updates. Yahoo once was the place that organized the Internet. Now, it’s a place for fantasy-sports leagues, stock prices, and inscrutable purple signs proclaiming, “It’s You.” What is Yahoo? Neither Bartz nor other executives have proven able to coherently answer that question.

As it turns out, “mermaid” has long been a nickname for Tripoli, which helps explain Operation Mermaid Dawn. Although the rebels might have not given us the best name to bandy around in the press, it certainly fared better than Operation Ripper (Part II: The Final Rip) would have. That would have sent the wrong message to almost anyone—except maybe Qaddafi himself.

What many techno-scientists fail to understand - and thus find most frustrating - about dealing with climate change deniers is that the denier has no real interest in engaging at the scientist’s level of reality.

The point, for the climate denier, is not that the truth should be sought with open-minded sincerity – it is that he has declared the independence of his corner of reality from control by the overarching, techno-scientific consensus reality. He has withdrawn from the reality forced upon him and has retreated to a more comfortable, human-sized bubble.

In these terms, the denier’s retreat from consensus reality approximates the role of the cellular insurgents in Afghanistan vis-a-vis the American occupying force: this overarching behemoth I rebel against may well represent something larger, more free, more wealthy, more democratic, or more in touch with objective reality, but it has been imposed upon me (or I feel it has), so I am going to withdraw from it into illogic, emotion and superstition and from there I am going to declare war upon it.

Jan Chipchase is kind of hard to describe. Basically, he’s a strategist/technologist who travels the world with teams of ethnographers and designers, looking at how people use communications devices in different cultures. I like to kid him that he’s the Indiana Jones of user experience. He’s one of those wonderful people who’s essentially invented his own job, and I asked him to write to you about where (roughly) he is today.

1. Altruism. We share to bring valuable and entertaining content to others. We think about what our friends want to know, and try to help them out. 2. Self-definition. We share to define ourselves to others. Perhaps this notion is better phrased as, “you are what you share.” People consciously shape their online persona by the types of things they share. 3. Empathy. We share to strengthen and nourish our relationships. Sharing shows someone else we’re thinking about them and we care. 4. Connectedness. We share to get credit and feedback for being a good sharer, to feel valuable in the eyes of others. 5. Evangelism. We share to spread the word about a cause or brand we believe in.

What things are keeping your interest lately? The sheer surreality of the Republican presidential primary, Libya, Iain Sinclair's monolithic ongoing anti-Olympics project (Hackney, That Rose Red Empire and now Ghost Milk), the "gray man" concept in personal security, the culture of personal aerial drones, parts of the United States as newly undeveloped sub-nations and the foreign outsourcing thereof...